Free Republic

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued a San Jose semiconductor company today on charges that it racially harassed an African American assembly technician and then laid him off him when he complained. Novellus Systems Inc. allowed a Vietnamese American employee to play and rap aloud to music lyrics that included anti-black epithets, the federal agency said. The assembly technician, Michael Cooke, complained repeatedly to his superiors, but the co-worker continued to sing along to the music and use racial slurs, the agency said. "That kind of language pains me," Cooke said. "The N-word is not something I take lightly....

It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos - President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon - finalized and released the "North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza." The "Plan" - that's what they call it, with a capital P - is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats. This idea was launched on Sept. 14, 2005,...

The Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the 2010 census so the government can better count illegal immigrants. Raids during the population count would make an already distrustful group even less likely to cooperate with government workers who are supposed to include them, the Census Bureau's second-ranking official said in an Associated Press interview. Deputy Director Preston Jay Waite said immigration enforcement officials did not conduct raids for several months before and after the 2000 census. But today's political climate is even more volatile on the issue of illegal immigration. Enforcement agents "have a job to...

At the latest round of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Committee meetings, members of the committee criticized member nations’ anti-abortion laws, saying that undue restriction on abortions is “a crime against humanity.” Committee member Heisoo Shin said that it was necessary for governments to “create a momentum, a social force that stops the crime and allows a woman to avoid the risk of an illegal and possibly unsafe abortion.” CEDAW member Silvia Pimentel, faculty member at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, said, “Women have their reasons to seek...

Despite objections from restaurant owners and food-industry officials, the King County Board of Health on Thursday banned artificial trans fat and required nutrition labeling for menu items in chain restaurants. With the vote, King County joins a handful of jurisdictions in the country to ban artificial trans fats in restaurant meals and becomes only the second to require nutrition labeling on menus. While most restaurant owners and their supporters testified against the trans-fat ban -- most said they're already getting rid of trans fats but they simply hate mandates -- they saved their harshest words for the nutrition-labeling requirement. Chris...

In an effort to test the ability of terrorist groups to obtain nuclear material, Congressional investigators set up a sting operation. A fake company named “Death to America, Inc.” and listing Al Kyda as its president was able to obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) authorizing the firm to buy enough radioactive material to build a so-called "dirty bomb." Apparently, nobody at the NRC checked whether the company was legitimate and an NRC official even helped “Mr. Kyda” fill out the application form. The NRC acknowledged that it “may have erred” in granting a license to the...

EDITORIAL Ignore city's spin: Flag flap a slap at vets Friday, June 29, 2007 2:24 AM EDT The heart and soul of the Marietta July Fourth Parade each year are the many military veterans who take part, some of them in their old uniforms - not the hordes of politicians who use the event as an excuse to get "face time" in front of potential voters. The veterans and veterans groups elicit by far the loudest ovations from the crowds that line the parade route, louder than the cheers for any politician or other participant. And that's as it should...

(Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2681 commander) Dean and other veterans questioned the policy, arguing that they had distributed the 3-by-5-inch U.S. flags from their float to children and other people on the sidewalks for the past several years, without incident. After his morning meeting with Flynn and a second meeting in the afternoon regarding the language of the agreement, Dean said he was satisfied with the compromise and said Flynn was "very cordial." Under the agreement, veterans will be allowed to walk-up to spectators and hand them flags 10 to 15 minutes before the parade begins,... [snip] "Some of...

The globalists are making a new attempt to circumvent and weaken a right explicitly recognized in the U.S. Constitution: Americans' exclusive ownership of their own inventions. Fortunately, Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., have exposed this mischief and called on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to slow down and discuss the proposed legislation before making costly mistakes. As we've learned with "Comprehensive Immigration Reform," we should all be on guard any time politicians patronize us with pompous talk about "reform." The so-called Patent...

Just Breaking

How does the old carol go? Something like this?God rest ye merry, bureaucrats, At this time of good cheer we ought not to forget bureaucrats.  This is the age of the bureaucrat, after all.  We build vast temple complexes to honor bureaucracy at the center of every major city-office buildings.  The French for office is bureau, but they call their bureaucrats fonctionnaires, functionaries.  Bureaucrats are the champions of order and stability.  And like the gentlemen addressed in the original carol, it is not clear exactly what they do.  But it is impolite to ask. Let nothing you dismay. People who...

After returning from Iraq in 2003, I found myself preparing to leave active-duty in 2004. For some reason, I encountered several interesting articles about Donald Rumsfeld and came to be pretty impressed with the guy. I don't mean his leadership style, or his decisions or anything like that. I mean personality-wise. He's got a great bio: elected to the House of Representatives at age 29, worked his way through Washington for nearly two decades before departing for the private sector. There he turned around two companies that were failing, and by all accounts, he did so with panache. My boss...

Shock, incredulity and downright horror – that has been Australians’ reaction to the news that US has banned Vegemite. And even Americans who can’t stand the stuff think their government has gone too far. “We have terrorists trying to smuggle in weapons, dirty bombs, WMD, we have druglords smuggling in tons of illegal hallucinogen drugs,” writes an American poster going by the screen name of Fair Opinion at the US-based Free Republic bulletin board. “And border security is spending time and effort to stop people from bringing in vegetable extract!” Another US poster observed, “It's pretty silly for the government...

Claridon Township -- Tim Taylor's job calls for finding ways to distribute food stamps to Geauga County's Amish. He might as well be trying to sell them cars. The horse-and-buggy crowd philosophically opposes the support program overseen by Taylor's agency, the Geauga Department of Job & Family Services. Accepting public assistance is verboten within the Amish culture. It simply is not done. But Taylor is under orders to at least try to get them enrolled. The Ohio Department of Job & Family Services has asked Geauga and Holmes counties, which feature the state's largest Amish populations, to lift dismal food-stamp...

DUBLIN -- In a stainless-steel cabinet between two gurneys, Josh Moonman stores bottles of a pink fluid, labeled with skulls and crossbones, that is used for embalming bodies. "If I were to open one of those lids now and let you smell it, it would knock you back," says Mr. Moonman, an embalmer for Ireland's Fanagan Group of mortuaries. Because the fluid contains formaldehyde, which is poisonous, European Union regulators are considering banning the chemical as a potential threat to human health and the environment. Among the worries, environmentalists say: decaying bodies leaching toxic chemicals into the ground. But a...

See for example this thread first. This one is a really weird story, folks. Up in Minnesota, a massage therapist (over time) fell in love with one of her clients, and they ended up getting married. The state is charging her with a crime for violating (pun intended) a state law forbidding massage therapists from having sex with former clients for two years. And having lived in Minnesota for 10 years before my lonely exile to the desert, I can tell you that the land of 10,000 lakes is as liberal as they get--recall Minnesota was the only state to...

The scientific name is Stevia Rebaudiana, and it is an interesting plant. The Dixie Chicks would have no use for it since it produces no euphoria, confusion, or tendencies towards irrational thought. What it does- ... well, you need to break off a piece of a leaf, put it in your mouth, and chew. Have you ever been the victim of one of those happy-hour Waffle House comedians who find it clever to unscrew the top on a sugar dispenser? In its refined form, stevia is over 200 times sweeter than sugar. It is a natural sweetener which has been...

See for example this thread or this thread first. In support of his New World Order our government wants an "Open Border": So the Mexicans know where the Minutemen go the whole thing just reeks of "ordure".

BENNINGTON — Vermont is at a greater risk of a major outbreak of animal-borne disease if it does not begin tracking its livestock, says the state's agriculture chief. While local health officials are confident in their ability to deal with the avian flu, Steve Kerr, the state's agriculture secretary, is discouraged by efforts to block related preparations. A debate has emerged in the state and nation over the need to track livestock. The yet-to-be implemented National Animal Identification System is a federal plan to ear-tag and track the movements of all domestic livestock in the United States by 2009. Many...

Our mission today, should you choose to accept, is to vigorously launch the Free Bob campaign -- to set loose what's left of a moose that is being held in captivity by enforcement officials within the ministry of natural resources. It may seem frivolous, but it is not. Frivolous is to concern ourselves with today's speech from the throne, with Iraq and Afghanistan, with the price of gas at the pumps, and with whether Pamela Anderson's near-baring of her puppies at the Junos will save a single seal. Those scenarios are out of our control. We are here today to...